The present application relates to compiling and reporting data associated with activity on a network server and more particularly to compiling only a subset of the potential data to reduce data analysis and reporting hardware needs.
Programs for analyzing traffic on a network server, such as a worldwide web server, are known in the art. One such prior art program is described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/240,208, filed Jan. 29, 1999, issued as U.S. Pat. No. 6,925,442 on Aug. 2, 2005, for a Method and Apparatus for Evaluating Visitors to a Web Server, which is incorporated herein by reference for all purposes. WebTrends, Inc. owns this application and also owns the present provisional application. In these prior art systems, the program typically runs on the web server that is being monitored. Data is compiled, and reports are generated on demand—or are delivered from time to time via email—to display information about web server activity, such as the most popular page by number of visits, peak hours of website activity, most popular entry page, etc.
Analyzing activity on a worldwide web server from a different location on a global computer network (“Internet”) is also known in the art. To do so, a provider of remote web-site activity analysis (“service provider”) generates JavaScript code that is distributed to each subscriber to the service. The subscriber copies the code into each web-site page that is to be monitored.
When a visitor to the subscriber's web site loads one of the web-site pages into his or her computer, the JavaScript code collects information, including time of day, visitor domain, page visited, etc. The code then calls a server operated by the service provider—also located on the Internet—and transmits the collected information thereto as a URL parameter value. Information is also transmitted in a known manner via a cookie.
Each subscriber has a password to access a page on the service provider's server. This page includes a set of tables that summarize, in real time, activity on the customer's web site.
The above-described arrangement for monitoring web server activity by a service provider over the Internet is generally known in the art. Examples of the information analyzed includes technical data, such as most popular pages, referring URLs, total number of visitors, returning visitors, etc. The basic mechanism of such services is that each tracked web-site page contains some JavaScript in it that requests a 1×1 image from the service provider's server. Other information is sent along with that request, including a cookie that uniquely identifies the visitor. Upon receipt of the request, applicants' WebTrendsLive service records the hit and stages it for full accounting. This is a proven method for tracking web site usage.
While this mechanism works, it requires increased resources (e.g. bandwidth and processing) for service providers as traffic to it increases.
Accordingly, the need still remains for a way to reduce the resources necessary to track and report web-page traffic while maintaining accuracy in the statistics obtained.